UT professor: Business analytics booming

The retail game is getting a lot more sophisticated, with companies watching customers more closely, and vice versa.

A University of Tennessee professor highlighted this recently, discussing how Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers are increasingly subject to the world of business analytics. This means every purchase is contributing to a sea of data that retailers and other companies can use to better reach consumers.

"Shopping is changing because of the ability to share information," Robert Mee, a professor in the Department of Statistics, Operations and Management Science in the UT College of Business Administration, said in a statement.

We explored an aspect of this recently, looking at how small Middle Tennessee manufacturers are getting more sophisticated in reaching consumers directly. As companies close in on their customers, so too are shoppers — consumers have more instant information than ever before.